


Things Stay the Same

by teyla



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Car Accidents, Closeted Character, Gen, Injury, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, could be read as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 19:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17289725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/pseuds/teyla
Summary: During blizzard season, Ben and Sammy each for their own reasons make an unwise choice. The experience that ensues should be life changing—though is it?





	Things Stay the Same

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justnightvalethings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justnightvalethings/gifts).



> Beta'ed by [justnightvalethings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justnightvalethings)—thank you! You've been great and very patient.
> 
> Also written for justnightvalethings as a choose-your-own-adventure fic. Thank you for indulging me. <3
> 
> There's no explicit Sammy/Ben happening in this, but if you're so inclined, feel more than free to read as shippy. There should be plenty of space for it.
> 
> Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

“And we are still here, King Falls, like the proverbial rock in a literal storm, and we are taking your calls. You can reach us at—”

“Actually, strike that.” Ben has that look on his face that he gets when he surprises himself with his own assertiveness. Sammy privately calls it the Ben Arnold Professional Producer Face. “We have been on for over six hours straight, Sammy. My ears hurt, my ass aches, and my anxiety is through the roof because I only plan for _one_ additional hour of content, not—indefinite hours. We have done our duty for King Falls and country. I say we put on a Best Of and get the hell out of here.” Ben pauses, clears his throat. “Sorry, listeners.”

You have to give it to Ben, doing a show with the guy doesn’t get boring. Sammy laughs to fill the moment of dead air it takes him to reorient. “Right, well. I am with you. While I love this show, and this town, and while I enjoy nothing more than talking to all of you, King Falls, I will admit that a six-hour radio marathon wasn't what I was planning on when I walked in here last night. That said—” He glances at the sound-proof window behind the broadcast desk. At this point, it's covered in a thin crust of ice almost all the way up to the roof. “How do you suggest we get out of here, Ben, when the reason we _are_ still here is that our follow-up broadcast can’t air because the host can't get up the mountain through the truly apocalyptic weather conditions?”

“Apocalyptic weather conditions.” Ben snorts, ducks his head under the desk to dig through the box of tapes he's got down there. “When you talk like that, Sammy, it's really obvious that you're from the city. I'm sure where you used to live, they shut down traffic the moment there's a single snow flake in the air.”

“ _That_ is not a single snow flake.” It wasn't too bad when Sammy drove up, but about half-way through the regular show, the picturesque snowflakes sauntering down from the skies turned into a proper blizzard. It's now at a point where Sammy's not sure he'd even manage to dig up his car, never mind drive it through the mess out there. “It's more like—”

“It's the sort of weather we get every winter, Sammy. You've just gotten lucky so far.” Ben pulls a tape out from under the desk, holds it up triumphantly. “Best Of. Not just us, but Chet as well. How about some mid-morning jazz to tide y'all over your commute to wherever you're going—because, unlike Sammy, you won't let yourself be kept off the roads by a little bit of frozen H2O?”

Sammy doesn't even have the time to protest before Ben's shoved the tape in and has his finger poised on the button. He can't help but smile, though he does give Ben the spread hands of a silent “what the fuck”. Ben widens his eyes; he does look about ready to get out of here. Sammy concedes with an eye roll.

“You heard it, King Falls. Don't hold it against us when we leave you with some smooth jazz and the best of yours truly while we brave the perfidious mountain roads. I promise we'll do our best to make it back on time for our regular show tomorrow night, when you'll be able to call in and tell us all about your jazz-fueled commutes, and anything else that's on your mind.”

Ben hits the button before Sammy's even properly finished, pulls his headset off with a groan. “Oh my _God_.”

Sammy makes sure the mikes are off—part habit, part demonstrative conscientiousness to mess with Ben. It goes unnoticed; Ben's too busy getting up and hopping up and down. He shakes his hands and shoulders, looks like a soccer player about to go on the field. “Oh my God, Sammy, I thought it'd never end. I thought we'd be stuck here till the inevitable meteor hit that'll wipe out humanity. My ass is so sore.”

“We are technically still stuck here.” Sammy's got a post-show ritual—putting his headset away, taking his mug to the kitchenette. It's getting disturbed by the fact that they're not being relieved, that the board's still on their set-up and playing a tape. It's a weird feeling. “You're not serious about driving in this, are you?”

“Serious as a fucking heart attack.” Ben grabs his coat like he's trying to make a point (which he probably is). “Not that I don't love being here, but six hours of making conversation is too much. The introverted part of my personality can't take it.”

“Your personality doesn't have an introverted part.” Sammy grabs his coat as well, shrugs it on as he heads over to the door. He's seen enough through the station window, but there's no harm in checking how bad it really is. At the very least, it might change Ben's mind.

Ben is right behind him as he opens the door, makes a noise like a disgruntled cat as a sharp wind cuts past them into the little station house. Sammy fumbles for his coat zipper. “Jesus, Ben. This can't be normal, not when it was, like, eighty degrees last Christmas. You think Gwendolyn's got something to do with this?”

“No, she doesn't. We are in the mountains, Sammy. Eighty degrees in December is weird. This? This is just every winter of my childhood. Come on.”

Ben pushes past him, starts clambering through the snow drifts towards the white mounds that are Ben's and Sammy's cars. Sammy swears under his breath. “Ben—”

But there's no stopping Ben Arnold. Sammy should've known the moment he put his coat on that this would end with him helping Ben clear the snow off his car. He finds a pair of gloves in his pocket. They're wool and soaked within seconds, but Sammy keeps them on; better than nothing. Ben's just using his coat sleeves. Sammy does wonder at times if Ben refuses to admit simple conveniences into his life out of principle, or just because they don’t cross his mind.

“Right,” says Ben eventually, steps back and dusts off his coat. “Good enough. You coming?”

Sammy squints at Ben, looks back at the station, which he can barely see through the heavy snowfall. Staying here would mean sitting in that small, empty studio on his own and waiting for the snow to stop falling, then digging his car out from under however many feet of snow it'll be at that point. Driving home in an empty car to an empty apartment. He sighs. “All right, fine. But do not drive us into a ditch, okay?”

“I would never.” Ben unlocks the car, gives him a grin. “I learned to drive in weather like this. You're perfectly safe.”

For a car that wasn't top-of-the-line when it was new and has seen better days since, Ben's Saturn doesn't handle the weather half-badly. Ben has a way of stop-going through the freshly-fallen snow that makes Sammy's empty stomach protest, but it does the trick: they don't get stuck on the uneven parking lot, and once they make it out onto the road, the needle of the odometer creeps all the way up to fifteen.

“You do know how to drive in this weather.” Sammy peers through the passenger window. The sun's up by now, but you wouldn't know it from the darkness between the trees. “Color me impressed.”

“I will, if we ever reach the town. This is _excruciating_.”

Sammy laughs. “Is there somewhere you need to be? I don't think I've ever seen you in quite as much of a hurry to get home.”

Ben squints, shifts his hands on the wheel. “I don't like being stuck. And we're _not_. We're not stuck. We just need to get down to the main road, they'll have cleared it by now.”

“I'm sure.” He should've put two and two together. Ben doesn't like the idea of being trapped; who would've thought. He turns the radio on as a distraction, and grimaces when Chet's voice oozes out of the speakers. “I'm not sure we should've left this on as a day broadcast, Ben. Chet's not really a pre-watershed guy.”

“Whatever. Just—change the station. Or hook up my phone. I can't do Chet while I'm trying to drive through the North Pole.”

“Good call.” Sammy finds Ben's auxiliary cable. He knows better than to hook up Ben's phone; Ben's taste in music is questionable to put it nicely. Instead, he plugs in his own phone to find the only song appropriate for this situation.

Ben's face when he realizes what's playing is priceless. “You are kidding me, Sammy. I know you're doing this to mess with me, but honestly, I might just decide to take this one personally.”

“Aw, come on, Ben. Nobody can hate this song.”

“I don't hate the song, I hate that you're playing _Don't Stop Me Now_ when not only can't I air guitar to it, I can't even get my car to go faster than Granny Frickard in a shopping cart!”

“You gotta learn to relax and enjoy the good things in life. _Queen_ 's definitely one of those.”

“You're terrible, dude.”

Sammy grins and leaves Ben navigating them through the snow drifts while his phone runs through his _Queen_ folder. They make it past _Flash_ , _Crazy Little Thing Called Love_ , and _Killer Queen_ before Ben can't help himself and starts singing along under his breath. Another two or three songs later, they're coming up to the sharp turn that leads onto the main road.

“Is it cleared?” Sammy stretches his neck, tries to catch a glimpse through the trees.

“It had better fucking be.”

It seems to be; Sammy can spot a tell-tale pile of snow across the intersection. The road to the station meets the main road at a steep angle as well as a steep incline—worst combination for these sort of weather conditions. Sammy throws Ben a glance, and wishes he hadn't. Ben's got a tendency to look concerned about everything, but the glint in his eyes as he eases the car over the snow bank makes Sammy's guts clench.

He wraps a firm grip around the door handle. “Are you good taking that turn?”

“Yes.” Ben's tone says the opposite. Ben does, too, a moment later. “No. I don't know. I'm not sure—”

“What?”

“Shit.”

“Ben, _what?”_

__

__

“I can't brake.”

The car's moving across the not-so-thin film of snow that’s fallen since the road was cleared. Sammy wouldn't consider the speed break-neck, but the movement is a little too smooth, a little too steady. They're sliding, not driving, and they’re not completing their turn. He swears under his breath. “Turn, Ben. Just—turn the wheel, go—”

“I'm trying!” Ben's pulling the wheel to the left, but it's like the car's floating. Sammy snaps his eyes to the windshield, to the edge of the road that they're moving towards—a narrow shoulder buried in snow lining a sharp drop with no guardrail. Behind it, a wall of dark trees looms, conifers whose heavy branches block every last bit of sunlight. “Fuck.” He fumbles for his seat belt, not even sure what he's planning to do. “Fuck, Ben, we—”

“Shit!”

The car jerks as it hits the incline of the shoulder. Sammy has no idea how he got the impression that their speed wasn't dangerously fast—it must've been, because their momentum carries them right on over, front wheels dropping with a sickening jolt as they lose ground. Ben flails, grabs the wheel. “We're gonna go over!”

With journalistic precision, Ben's hit the nail on the head. The car groans and creaks, tips forward and, like James Cameron's Titanic, picks up speed as it reaches its tipping point and goes over the edge.

Sammy drives past this drop every day, but he doesn’t have the first clue what’s down here. He doesn’t get a chance to see much now, either. Apparently the overhang isn’t high enough to give a sedan the time to properly enter free fall. He’s pressed into the seat for just a split-second before the car hits something solid and inertia jerks him forward. He gets the air knocked out of him, his seatbelt locks and cuts into his skin. The car teeters on its hood and, with a screeching sound of metal and wood, tips over onto its side. Sammy’s thrown against the window, bangs his head and hears himself cry out.

When the car stops moving, it takes a moment for things to settle, for the ringing in his ears to separate from the bleeping alarms that are emanating from the dashboard. There’s another sound emerging, Ben swearing like a sailor in a tone that makes Sammy reach out towards him.

“Ben.” He can’t move properly, and it makes panic bloom in his chest until he realizes it’s because his seatbelt’s locked in so tight it’s almost cutting off his air supply. “Shit. Ben! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. _Fuck_!” Sammy peers in Ben’s direction, which, weirdly enough, is _up_ —the car came to rest on its right side, with Ben suspended above Sammy in a seatbelt tangle of his own. “This is—just—Jesus _Christ_! Are you hurt?”

“No, I don’t—” Sammy takes a moment to listen to his body. His head hurts where he hit the window, and his torso’s still in the seat belt’s too-tight grip, but all his limbs are where they’re meant to be. “I don’t think so. Can you get out?”

Ben’s pulled his feet up and is grappling for support on the middle console. His boot catches against the cigarette lighter, dislodges it with the crack of breaking plastic. “Fuck.” As Sammy watches, Ben pulls on the door release, tries to shove the door open with gravity working against him. His feet kick in the passenger seat’s direction, and Sammy flinches back.

“Careful!”

“Shit, sorry.”

“The _window_.” There’s no way to open a car door upwards. They’re built to fall shut, for fuck’s sake. “Open the fucking window, Ben.”

They’re lucky that Ben’s car is old enough to have a manual window crank. Snow blows in the moment the window’s down, makes Sammy shudder and struggle against the seatbelt with renewed vigor. It’s like a fucking death trap, and the panic creeps back in as he fumbles with the release.

“Sammy!” Ben’s made it out somehow, kicking and scrambling. This is where being tiny comes in handy. He’s leaning into the window and reaching down. “Come on, Sammy, gimme your hand.”

“I can’t—” Sammy takes a breath as much as the seatbelt will allow, tries to calm himself down. “My seatbelt’s stuck.”

“Well, _open_ it.”

“I can’t, Ben, that’s the goddamn—” Another deep breath. “You got a knife on you, or something?”

“A knife?” From what Sammy can see of Ben’s backlit expression, he looks nonplussed. “That’s me, totally. Got my switchblade on me at all times, so damn ghetto.”

“For fuck’s sake. Something else, then, just something to get this fucking—”

“I got an idea.” Ben starts scrambling back, the sound of his boots reverberating in the car’s body. “BRB!”

_Don’t you fucking do it_. Sammy doesn’t say it out loud, but it’s a near thing. Ben wouldn’t leave him, Ben’s just getting something from somewhere. Still, not being able to see Ben when he feels like he’s been stapled to the fucking car seat, it does make him feel a bit light-headed.

The banging and shuffling continues. Ben’s doing something to the trunk, probably trying to open it. Sammy yanks on the seatbelt’s buckle, but only accomplishes making the belt cut even tighter into his chest and stomach.

He can feel himself starting to freak out. It’s a gradual process, his surroundings slowly transforming from neutral to incessantly threatening. The snow falling in through the open window is too cold; the snowflakes settling on his face feel like cigarette burns. The trees outside seem to grow taller, darker, threaten to topple over and finish the job of burying him alive. He closes his eyes, focuses on the air going in and out of his chest, the pain the tightness of the seatbelt is causing. Calm the fuck down, Stevens. Calm d—

“Sammy!”

Ben’s voice startles him. Ben’s back hovering above the window, face still mostly hidden in shadows. He sounds concerned. “You okay, Sammy?”

“Fine. I’m—”

“Here.” He holds something out, reaches across so Sammy can grab it. It’s a pair of bandage scissors.

“First aid kit,” Ben provides as an explanation. “Still had one in the trunk, you never know.”

“God bless you, Ben Arnold.” It’s an awkward angle, but there’s enough give beside Sammy’s hip to wedge the scissors under the belt. They’re not the sharpest pair Sammy’s ever used, but they do the job. When the last few threads are cut, the belt retracts into the wall with a violent snap, slaps Sammy around the face with the frayed end he just created.

“Shit!”

“Careful!”

“Thanks, Ben.” Dry, but also too shaky to hide it. The pressure’s gone from his chest. First thing he does is take a proper, deep breath. Then another. “Jesus.”

“Come on.” Ben’s holding out a hand. “Climb up here.”

He can move now, but climbing up is still easier said than done. He’s tall enough so he doesn’t have to reach above his head for the window, but it’s also been a long time since he was able to climb something chest-high without a certain level of flailing and indignity. Ben jumps down off the car to make space once Sammy’s half-way out, and after some more flailing, Sammy follows.

“Ah, crap.” His vision wavers as he lands on his feet on the uneven forest floor. He reaches out blindly for Ben, who grabs his shoulder.

“Hey! Stay upright, Sammy.” Dark eyes search his face. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” His lips feel numb, so he wets them, swallows. “Just shaken. Fucking seatbelt, huh?”

“ _Not_ what it’s meant to do,” Ben agrees. There’s at least three expletive-filled letters of complaint to Saturn manufacturing in his tone. “And this is not what _I_ meant to do,” Ben continues, waves an indignant hand at the upended car. “I’m sorry, Sammy. I thought it’d be fine.”

“Don’t worry about it.” It’s a stupid thing to say, considering where they are, but Sammy doesn’t like the shaky undertone in Ben’s voice. “We’ll just—we’re right next to the main road, right? We’ll just wait for a car, someone’s bound to come by eventually.”

“All right, solid idea, but how do you plan to get up there?”

Sammy lets his eyes follow to where Ben’s pointing, and for the first time properly realizes where they are. The car went over the edge of an overhang, got stopped by a tree, and slid down onto its hood to topple over onto its side. It’s lying in a pile of snow beside the scraped-up tree trunk, half-sheltered by the outcrop of the road. They fell a distance of at least twelve feet.

“Shit.” The dizziness creeps back in, but this time around, Sammy manages to pull it together without Ben’s help. “How the hell are we not dead?”

“I don’t know.” Ben sounds a bit breathless himself. “Karma, I guess?”

“Must be.” Sammy lets his eyes travel along the edge of the road, squints through the trees into the semi-dark distance. “I think the terrain evens out this way. The road continues that way, and the forest floor goes up. We should be able to get up on the shoulder down there.”

“Tromping through the forest during a blizzard.” Ben nods, a vigorous gesture that contradicts the tremor in his voice. “Exactly how I was planning to spend my morning, Sammy. This is great.”

“Yeah, I’m not partial myself.” Sammy pulls his coat more tightly around his shoulders, tugs on his collar in a vain attempt to pull it up. This coat is fine for spending exactly enough time outside to get from your front door to your car. It’s not meant for the sort of outdoorsy adventures they’re about to embark on. “Only way to get home, though, right? So come on.”

Ben growls a little, utters another few quiet curses, but starts moving without any further serious complaints.

They keep close to the overhang, partly to keep their sense of direction, but mostly because the steep slope keeps the worst of the snow away. The forest floor is uneven and sloping softly itself, treacherous with bumps and dips hidden by a soggy layer of white. It’s not just Sammy’s coat that’s not made for prolonged outdoors activities, it’s his shoes as well. His feet are soaked before long, two solid blocks of ice dragging him down as he makes his way through the trees.

He fucking hates nature. Always has, always will.

“I was never a Boy Scout.” Ben blurts it out after they’ve been walking silently for a while, no doubt one of the fifty free-associated thoughts that cross his mind per second. “Played Little League, but that was it as far as American childhood staples go. How ‘bout you, Sammy, you get your Snow Survival Merit Badge?”

“No.” Just as he says it, his foot catches on a root. He manages to keep his balance, clenches his teeth. It’s hard to tell how much that actually hurt, considering he can’t really feel his feet anymore. The state of discomfort he’s experiencing is pretty evenly distributed across his body. The one thing he can say for certain is that his head’s still pounding from hitting it on the car window.

He doesn’t realize that Ben has stopped until he walks straight into him. He would’ve probably slipped and fallen, if not for Ben gripping his elbow. “Dude!”

“What?” He steadies himself on Ben’s sleeve. “Ben. Why are we stopping?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

It’s still fairly dark between the trees, but being this close, Sammy can see the concern in Ben’s eyes. Can definitely hear it in his voice. It makes him pause, take stock. “I—think so?” He raises a hand to feel the side of his head, grimaces as he finds a tender spot. “Hit my head, but it really wasn’t that bad.”

“Concussions are not to be taken lightly.” Ben takes his shoulder. “I had one in eighth grade, and the doc told me it’s basically brain damage. Follow my finger.”

Sammy wants to protest, but gets distracted by Ben waving his finger back and forth in front of his eyes. He has no trouble following it, not until the slightly-too-fast movement makes his stomach roil. He pulls a face, waves Ben off. “Stop it. I’m not concussed.”

“Well, you look like you’re auditioning for Erik in _Phantom_.” At Sammy’s confused squint, Ben rolls his eyes. “You’re _pale_. What else hurts besides your head?”

“Nothing hurts, Ben.” He doesn’t really mean to snap, but the longer they stand here bickering, the longer it’ll take them to get somewhere warm and dry. Sammy would really like to be somewhere warm and dry. “I’m soaked, and I’m cold, but I’m fine. Let’s go, all right?”

“Sammy—”

“Let’s _go_.”

He pushes forward, puts some weight against his arm as he tries to nudge Ben out of the way. Ben moves aside more quickly than expected, the ground offers up another uneven spot, and this time Sammy doesn’t manage to sort his feet out quickly enough.

“Shit!”

He goes down in a tangle of limbs. Ben tries to grab him and gets his arm. Sammy’s shoulder protests as it’s forced to take his weight, the jolt reverberating through his body. _Now_ things hurt. A sharp stab of pain slices through his side as he finally hits the ground, and he immediately curls up. “ _Fuck_!”

“Sammy!”

Ben’s hands are on his shoulder, tugging, but Sammy’s going to need a moment. He’s got his eyes squeezed shut, his insides in his throat threatening to make him upchuck into his mouth. “Shit, Sammy, you okay?”

Very astute question. Sammy tries to suck in some air, and some more, breathe around the nausea and the pain in his gut that’s slowly settling back down to a tolerable level. Still noticeable, though. He wonders how he missed it earlier. “Dizzy,” he says. It’s not what he was planning to say, but it’s accurate. “Everything’s spinning.”

“Crap.” There’s a breathless note in Ben’s voice, another tug on his shoulder. “Can you—uh. Shit. Can you get up? Road’s right down there, we’ve got, like, another sixty feet.”

“Yeah.” He was standing a moment ago, he should be able to get back to his feet. Slowly uncurls, which makes the pain flare up again. It’s in his side, pulling up across his chest. “That goddamn seatbelt.” He sits up, takes a breath, and shivers violently. If he wasn’t already soaked to the bone, he definitely is now. “Probably cracked a rib, or something.”

“Right.” Ben’s wearing that expression that makes him look like a startled house mouse. “Well. Better than going through the windshield, right? And, eugh, getting crushed between the tree and the car, the way we came down. That’s more than one broken rib.”

Sammy grimaces. “Thanks for that mental image, Ben. Too kind.” He takes Ben’s outstretched hand and heaves himself back to his feet. Has to hold on to Ben until the trees stop spinning. “We could be back up in the station, you know?”

Ben flinches, and it makes Sammy feel bad for rubbing it in. He pats Ben’s shoulder, gestures in direction of where the forest floor finally rises far enough to allow them to climb up to the road. “Lead the way, dude.”

“I’ve never put my car in the ditch before.” Ben throws him a side glance before he starts walking. “I wouldn’t have insisted we leave if I’d known this was gonna happen.”

“I know.” He tries for reassuring, smooth over Ben’s defensiveness that’s so obviously covering for guilt. He should’ve known better than to agree to get into a car in this sort of weather. It’s not like Ben forced his hand.

He feels like he should add something along those lines, but decides to save his breath. Walking suddenly takes a lot of effort, makes his stomach twist with every surge of pain that spreads through his abdomen as he clambers across the uneven ground. He hopes he’s right that this is just a cracked rib. He’s had one before, and it didn’t quite feel like this—this pain is duller, deeper, somehow—but it’s been a while. Maybe he’s misremembering.

They reach the road at last. The snow’s let off now, has gone back to softly sauntering down as if the driving flakes from an hour ago were nothing but an anxious delusion. Sammy slips on the little hill leading up to the shoulder, and would’ve gone down again if Ben hadn’t grabbed him. As he clings to Ben’s arm and tries to get his feet back under himself, he remembers that he didn’t even get in the car on Ben’s behalf. He would’ve let Ben drive off by himself if the thought of waiting alone in the station hadn’t creeped him out.

“Sorry,” he says, wets his lips because they’re kind of numb again. Realizes that Ben can’t know what he’s apologizing for—Ben may be a lot of things, but a mind reader he ain’t. Before he can clarify, Ben ushers him the rest of the way up to the shoulder.

“Come on.” Ben sounds panicked. But then, Ben sounding panicked is kind of a default. Sammy blinks a few times, finds his balance on the more even ground by the side of the road.

“I’m good.” He frowns, waits for his vision to clear. When it does, his eyes focus on Ben standing there with his hand on Sammy’s elbow and snowflakes melting in his hair. Sammy gives him a smile. “I’m all right, I promise. Let’s get somewhere warm, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Ben doesn’t seem reassured, only reluctantly lets go of Sammy’s elbow. “You gonna stay standing?”

“Always.”

The road lies still and quiet in the mid-morning light. There’s a thin layer of snow covering the asphalt, the latest tire tracks old enough to have already been blurred by the still-falling snowflakes. Sammy hears his own teeth chattering, the sound reverberating through his head as he tries to figure out how long it’s probably going to take for someone to show up.

Too damn long, that’s for sure.

Ben’s heading a few steps down the road where it takes a turn off to the left, stretches his neck to see any potential cars coming up the hill. As he’s watching, Sammy wonders if Ben is as fine as he claims to be. Shock is a thing, after all, adrenaline making you disregard pain and injuries so you can follow your flight instinct. It worked for Sammy, and Sammy’s generally not half as wound up as Ben. Maybe Ben’s hurt worse than he thinks.

“Ben.” It comes out too quiet, catches in his throat. He coughs a little. “Ben!”

Ben’s head snaps up. He hurries over. Belatedly, Sammy realizes that Ben probably thinks Sammy needs help. Shakes his head. “I’m fine, I just—” A violent shiver interrupts him, sends a jolt through his body, makes his side hurt and his head spin. Ben’s hand is back on his elbow. Sammy doesn’t shrug him off. Takes a deep breath. “Are you sure you’re okay? You may feel like it, but shock can mess with you so y—”

Another shiver runs through him, and this time his stomach joins in, roiling like it’s trying to regurgitate itself, not just its contents. He stumbles a little. “Just wanna make sure you’re okay.” He’s not sure if that’s what comes out; his lips are numb again and this time, his tongue has joined them. He can’t quite make Ben out clearly, either; his vision’s blurry from all the dizzy spells that keep happening. On the other hand, he’s starting to feel warmer. Maybe he’s hit that stage of hypothermia where you stop feeling the cold. He’d be all right with that.

He wants to say something along those lines, crack a joke to lighten the mood because even if he can’t see Ben, he can feel Ben’s hands on his arms, can feel the tension radiating out from the guy. But the connection between his brain and his mouth seems to be out of order. One’s not properly coordinating with the other anymore. “’s fine,” he says, gets it past his uncooperative lips. “Everything’s fine, I’ll just—”

The ground’s coming closer, and that seems like the right idea. He doesn’t fight it, just nods a little in agreement. “Gonna lie down for a moment. Everything’s fine.”

\------

When he comes around, the cold is back full force. He’s never been this cold in his life; he’s chilled to the very core in a way that’s no less than painful. He’s lying on something rough and freezing—most likely a block of ice. There’s an unpleasant roaring in his ears and a bad taste in his mouth.

He makes an unwilling noise, moves his hands without anywhere concrete to put them. There’s the crunch of gravel next to his ear. Ben’s blurry face pops into his field of vision.

“Sammy!”

Sammy makes another noise that’s meant to be a confirmation, glad for Ben’s hand that catches his own. Ben’s other hand comes to Sammy’s forehead, brushes soaked strands of hair back. That’s nice, too.

“Hey, Sammy. Hey. You passed out on me.”

“Sorry.” He figured that was what happened. He’s tall enough to have suffered from growth spurt induced dizzy spells as a teenager, but it was never bad enough to actually make him pass out. He’s always wondered what it would feel like. Gives Ben a grin. “Bucket list item checked.”

“What?”

Before he can elaborate—he probably should; without context, it’s a bit of a weird thing to say—there’s another voice. “Sammy!” A familiar drawl coming from somewhere above his head. “You back with us, buddy?”

“Present.” He raises a hand like at roll call, but quickly puts it back down as the movement makes his stomach churn. Blinks as another familiar face enters his field of vision. “Hey, Troy.”

“You two are a right couple geniuses, aren’t you.” Troy’s presence explains the roaring in Sammy’s ears. It’s not an auditory hallucination, it’s the engine of Troy’s car that’s presumably idling nearby. “First rule of mountain blizzards, you do not drive in them. Second rule of mountain blizzards, if you do find yourself driving in them, and subsequently find yourself driving your car into a ditch like you mighta known would happen, you stay with the vehicle and call 911 like the good State of Oregon intended you to. Climbing through the woods like a couple of Bigfeet, Jeezus pleezus. I mighta expected that from you, Sammy, but Ben? You grew up here!”

“I know, I messed up. Please don’t rub it in right now.”

Ben sounds shaky and a little too serious for the situation, which to Sammy is inherently comical simply because it involves a grown man lying down in a pile of snow by the side of the road. Come to think of it, maybe it’s not really as funny as all that. He still doesn’t like Ben’s tone, though. Squeezes Ben’s hand. “You’re okay, buddy. Not your fault.”

“Yeah, kinda is. I was driving.”

Sure, but— “Not your fault. Could’ve said no.”

“You two lovebirds mind postponing this? We need to get both of you somewhere warm and dry, and you need to get looked at by a doctor, Sammy. Ben says you cracked a rib, but honestly, I ain’t never seen anyone pass out from a single cracked rib before.”

Troy’s making sense, and his words strip the last bit of humor from the situation. Suddenly, Sammy can feel the cold again, the way it’s making his body twitch and shiver. He can feel the pain in his side, ever-present and easy to ignore unless he moves as much as taking too deep a breath. He can feel a large pebble dig into his back right where his left kidney would be, and he can feel his soaked coat weighing him down like a soggy blanket.

This may not the scariest situation he’s ever been in, but it’s ranking among the top ten. He clings more tightly to Ben, reaches out with his other hand as well. “Help me get in the car, yeah?”

It ends up taking a lot more effort than getting into a car ever should. Ben helps him to his feet, pulls Sammy’s arm across his shoulders and heaves him up with more strength than Sammy would’ve expected. Troy helps, too, which is a good thing, considering Sammy realizes after a single step that walking without assistance is not in the cards right now. His legs feel like they’re made of jelly, and the pain in his side makes him light-headed the moment he’s vertical.

Troy stops him from simply collapsing into the car’s backseat, much to Sammy’s incomprehension, until he catches on that Troy wants his coat.

“It ain’t keeping you warm no more, buddy.” Troy sounds like he’s talking to a child. Sammy realizes he’s been batting Troy’s hands away from his coat zipper, much like a disgruntled toddler would. He stops and lets Troy get on with it.

“Good. Right.” Troy peels the coat off, does the same with the zip-up hoodie that Sammy shrugged on earlier when the station ended up being colder than expected. Troy was right when he said they’re doing nothing to keep Sammy warm. He barely notices they’re gone, except for the weight that’s lifted from his shoulders.

“Here.” Something dry and smooth settles against the back of his neck, crinkles as Troy pulls it into place. It’s a space blanket. “Hold on to that for me, all right? You can get in the car now.”

Troy’s driving the sheriff department’s SUV, a bulky Ford Edge that offers plenty of space in the backseat. It’s still not quite enough for Sammy to lie down, but he does anyway, feet wedged awkwardly against the door. Ben gets in the back as well, the loud crinkling of his own space blanket accompanying him as he nudges Sammy to lift his head and settle down in his lap.

He’s being quite gentle, keeps running his palm over Sammy’s forehead. Sammy closes his eyes, wonders if this is going to be weird once things are back to normal. Probably so. Right now, it helps with making his thoughts stop bleeding in and out of focus, so he doesn’t tell Ben to stop.

“Sammy?” As if Ben were reading his thoughts, his hand stills. “Sammy, open your eyes. Don’t pass out again.”

“’m not.” Sammy blinks his eyes open, looks for something to focus on. Car roofs are really uniform, so he picks the headrest of the passenger seat. “I’m okay.”

“You know, you keep saying that. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

There’s a tremor in Ben’s voice that makes Sammy want to offer comfort in return, but his hands are trapped in the tangle of the space blanket. He turns his head instead, noses against Ben’s thigh and hopes the movement serves its purpose. “Gonna be okay. Troy’s here.”

“What, and Troy’s Superman?”

“Hey.” Protest from the front seat. Sammy can spot a hand coming up as Troy adjusts the rearview mirror, presumably to catch Ben’s eyes. “You’re going to be fine, Ben. Both of you, you hear me? We’re going straight to Big Pine hospital, get you fixed up. Nothing to worry about. Just lean back.”

Ben makes a noise like he wants to protest, and Sammy nudges his thigh again. “You heard the man. Chill out, Ben.”

“That’d be so much more reassuring if your face weren’t basically transparent.” Despite his words, Ben leans back. His hand starts to move across Sammy’s forehead again. “You feel like you’re warming up, at least?”

“Yeah.” It’s not even a lie. The car’s dry and heated, and his waterlogged coat isn’t pulling him down anymore. “You?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m fine.” Ben sounds affronted by the mere fact that Sammy’s asking. “Honestly, I don’t think I’m even bruised. Shoulda let you drive, man.”

“We’d’ve never gotten out of the parking lot.” Which, thinking about it, may not have been the worst thing. He doesn’t say that, though. Instead, he frowns. “Hope it doesn’t keep snowing. Gotta get back up there tonight. Though we don’t even have a car.” Ben’s is wrecked, and probably filled up with snow at this point. His own car is in perfect driving condition, but still sitting next to the station. “We’ll need a ride. Troy, can you give us a ride later on?”

“I don’t think that’s—”

“Sure, buddy.” That’s Troy talking over Ben, calm and placating. Possibly just humoring Sammy, but for now, Sammy will take it. “Let’s get you checked out first, yeah? If everything’s fine, I’ll be happy to give you a ride to the station tonight. And back tomorrow morning, if you give me a call.”

“Thanks, Troy. You’re a life saver.”

Ben makes a strangled sound, but Troy silences him by pointedly clearing his throat. Sammy’s getting the feeling that there’s a whole second level to this conversation that he’s missing, but he’s not going to insist on an explanation. Things don’t feel quite real right now. Even the pain in his side feels like something happening to another person.

It’s not a particularly comfortable feeling.

“Ben.” He shivers, and his stomach protests the movement. He frees a hand from the space blanket after all, feels around for Ben’s. “Ben, where are we?”

Ben’s fingers close around his, warm and dry and reassuring. Sammy clings to them like a man drowning, tries to use them as a tether to shake this feeling of unreality. It’s starting to freak him out.

“We’re in Troy’s car, Sammy. He’s taking us to Big Pine hospital.”

Ben’s voice is breathless with worry. Sammy loves the guy, but sometimes, he feels like slapping him and telling him to think with his head rather than his panicked gut. “I know that, Ben. I—” Another shiver runs through him, makes the pain in his side triple and momentarily takes his breath away. It really fucking _hurts_. “Shit.” Quiet as he tries to suck in enough air to quell the nausea. Ben’s hand tightens around his. “I know we’re in Troy’s car,” he gets out. “But where’s Troy’s car?”

“In—a forest, I don’t know, some road. Sammy, are you okay? You said you were getting warmer!”

He thought he was. He’s not sure these shivers even have anything to do with the cold. They feel different, like his body trying to shake some awareness into him that something is wrong. Really fucking wrong, judging by the way his vision’s starting to blur around the edges. He can’t seem to draw a breath deep enough to properly fill his lungs.

A cracked rib this ain’t.

“I don’t feel so good.” His lips are doing the exciting numb thing again. It’s like having two useless, dead lumps of flesh attached to his face. “I’m really dizzy, I—” His guts convulse, cut him off and make him retch. He hasn’t eaten anything since before the show, so there’s nothing to come up except for stomach acid that burns his throat. The pain in his side is much worse than the retching, makes him lose track of his surroundings for a moment.

“—my. Sammy!” A hand on his face, patting his cheek. More like slapping it, really. It’s a welcome sensation, something real in a sea of undefined discomfort. “Don’t you fucking pass out on me, Sammy, I swear to God—”

“Ben.” He raises a hand, tries to reach for Ben’s, but his coordination’s shot. Ben gets it, stops trying to rouse him and interlocks their fingers instead. Sammy can feel another sensation against the side of his neck, Ben feeling his pulse.

“Hang in there, okay, Sammy? We’re almost there, we’re almost out of—why the _fuck_ are we stopping?”

Sammy’s pretty sure that last bit isn’t meant for him. It’s loud, Ben’s shouting, but he’s not shouting in Sammy’s direction. He tries to parse what Ben might mean, and realizes that the soft swaying of the car has stopped. They’re just sitting and idling right now.

“Hate to do this, bud, but I ain’t entirely certain this is the road to Big Pine.”

Troy’s voice is level, but Sammy can hear an undertone he doesn’t like. Ben doesn’t seem to like it, either; his voice gets even louder.

“You’re telling me you took the wrong fucking turn? For Christ’s sake, Troy, Sammy’s—”

“—gonna get the help he needs, li’l buddy, I promise. You just cool your jets and make sure he stays with us, while I go and figure out what the General’s done this time.”

“The Gen—you’re telling me we’re in—oh, _fuck_. We’re in Sweetzer Forest. Oh _hell_ no!”

There’s commotion, a loud crinkling of space blankets and a jolt as Ben’s thigh under Sammy’s head suddenly disappears. A cold gust of wind envelops him; Ben’s opened the door. Sammy shivers, curls up and makes a sound that sounds dangerously close to a whimper.

“Shit, Sammy, sorry. Sorry. Here.” The noise from the space blanket reverberates in his head as Ben tugs it more tightly around him. It’s too fucking loud; no blanket should be this loud. It probably isn’t; it’s just that his sensory input is shot.

“Ben.” He’s not sure what he’s going for, but Ben seems like he’s planning on leaving. The idea makes the panicked dread in Sammy’s gut expand like a supernova. “Ben, don’t—”

“I’m right here, Sammy, I’m—shit. Gimme your hand.”

Sammy reaches up, feels the cold slide freezing vines around his wrist and up his arm until Ben’s warm hand closes around his. He holds on tight, squeezes his eyes shut and hopes that whatever it is Ben’s doing is going to work the way Ben’s counting on.

Seems like what he’s doing is moving away from the car as far as he can without letting go of Sammy’s hand.

“General Abilene!”

Ben’s a small dude, but his voice has got punch. You can hear it when he’s singing, even when he’s just humming along under his breath the way he does when there’s a song on that he likes. There’s always a tremor to it that speaks of much greater volume than he’s using most times he opens his mouth.

Well, he’s using it now. The name echoes between the trees, startles birds and deer and probably causes a mid-sized avalanche on a nearby slope.

“General fucking Abilene, show yourself right now!”

“Not to curb your enthusiasm, Ben, but the General’s not the type to respond well to confrontation.”

Troy’s apparently gotten out as well; his voice floats in from somewhere near the rear of the car. Ben’s fingers around Sammy’s tighten. “I don’t fucking care. He’s going to respond to this confrontation. Here, take—”

Ben’s hand disappears and is replaced by a larger, softer one. Troy’s, presumably. Sammy’s just going to end up holding hands with all his male friends tonight. Nothing weird about that—or creepy, considering they don’t know one particular fact about Sammy that might make them think twice about allowing these kind of intimacies.

He should really fucking tell them. He should really fucking tell Ben, at least. What if this ends up killing him, like it seems on its way to, and he won’t have told Ben? Ben would most likely find out afterwards. Ben might find out from _Lily_. The thought makes him shudder.

“Hey there, buddy.” Troy’s hand tightens on Sammy’s. “You hanging in there?”

Sammy wants to make a noise to confirm, but the sound gets stuck in his throat. He clears it. “What—” And again. “Troy, what’s happening?”

“Ben’s heading over to the sign post. We’ve stopped at an intersection, you see. Sign for Big Pine’s pointing right, but I’m pretty sure that’s the General trying to pull the wool over our collective peepers. Roads all look the damn same when it’s freshly snowed, though, so I can’t be sure.”

Google Maps, Sammy wants to say. It’s the 21st century, use the technology available to you. But it’s Sweetzer Forest, of course, a place kept artificially frozen in 1864 by an apparition Sammy still doesn’t quite believe in. Sometimes, he hates this damn place.

“Ben’s over at the post now. He’s given it a good kick, not sure what that’s meant to accomplish—”

“I can hear him.” Fucked up sensory input or not, there’s no mistaking the rage-filled tenor ripping through the forest.

“Abilene! I know this is your turf. I know you think you can do _whatever_ with anyone who ends up here, lead them on a merry chase through Sweetzer Forest, and you know what? Most days, that’s fine. It’s fine! It’s charming, even. Gives the town some personality, I support that. But this— _bullshit_ —right here, this switching around road signs when a man’s life is on the line, it doesn’t fucking fly. You hear me?”

_Anyone can hear you_ , Sammy thinks. _Abilene’s dead soldiers halfway across the country and one hundred and fifty years in the past can hear you. Given our luck, you’ll probably conjure up a special King Falls rage demon that’ll kill us all._

The yelling is strangely reassuring, though, something real to focus on with his senses getting less reliable by the minute. Ben shouts some more about this not being the Appalachians, about the fact that the closest these woods ever came to seeing any Civil War action was about a thousand miles southeast, plus the weird First Battle of Bull Run re-enactment that Hollybrook instigated in 2005.

That must’ve been a riot. Sammy gets distracted picturing it, imagines Grisham in a silly hat commanding fake confederate troops made up of a thousand Greg Frickard clones. That’s terrifying, actually, makes his lurking anxiety spike and his throat close up. He’s not getting enough goddamn air as it is, he can’t afford to freak out—

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

Troy’s tone is full of wonder, pulls Sammy back to reality. He tightens his grip on Troy’s hand. “What?”

“The sign post’s gone and changed directions. Right before my very eyes, it’s gone and switched itself around. Ben. _Ben_!”

Troy’s hand disappears. There’s the crunching of boots in snow, Troy getting Ben’s attention. They exchange a few words, and they’re really not that far away, but Sammy’s having a hard time tracking. He’s getting that feeling of floating warmth again. It’s a nice enough sensation, but he’s beginning to think it’s a harbinger of nothing good.

_Ben_ , he thinks. Maybe says it out loud, he’s not sure. _Ben, I’m gay. Sorry I haven’t told you. Hope it doesn’t make things weird, but if I’m gonna die, you should know, right?_

\------

There’s a few snatches of awareness after that. He’s still in the car at one point, cradled in Ben’s lap again with Ben stroking his hair and the red and blues on top of Troy’s car making noise so loud it’s deafening. Next, he’s outside, hands pulling on his body, something cold settling against his back and around his nose and mouth. Ben’s there, too; Sammy can hear his voice. Can hear the choked-up tears in it, so he tries to reach out, but one of the people manhandling him catches his hand and pushes it back down at his side.

There’s a big gap after that, interspersed with lights and noises and strange smells, none of them particularly pleasant. He comes back to full awareness in a quiet, semi-dark room filled with hospital smells. He’s comfortably pain free, with the feather-light feeling of heavy medication relaxing his limbs. He lets his eyes trail up the IV line, lets them wander over to the heart monitor he’s hooked up to. He has no idea what the squiggly lines mean, but his pulse seems to be holding at a steady sixty-three beats per minute. Seems all right, as far as he can tell.

“Mr. Stevens. Welcome back.”

The voice belongs to a tall nurse who appeared next to Sammy’s bed more quietly than his broad stature should allow. Sammy jumps, blinks up at the guy.

“Hey.” His brain’s pretty slow, but he makes conversation for a living, so he manages a halfway decent follow-up. “Big Pine hospital, I assume?”

“That’s correct. The recovery room, to be precise.” The nurse smiles, does the nurse thing where he moves the adjustment bar on the IV line around. “My name’s Kingsley. You’ve just come out of emergency surgery.”

“Right.” Figures. Also explains the weird taste in his mouth, and his sore throat. They would’ve intubated him. The thought makes him grimace. “How’d that go?”

“Pretty good. You suffered a spleen rupture and were bleeding quite badly internally when you came in. The surgeons were able to patch it up and save it, though. You had to be given a blood transfusion, but you got by with only one unit. You’ll have to take it slow for a while, but you shouldn’t have any trouble making a full recovery.”

“Right. That’s good.” Lucky is what it is. His memory of being in Troy’s backseat is blurry, but he’s pretty sure he was convinced at one point that he was going to die. Wets his lips, and is pleased to find that the sensation in them is not diminished. “Where’s Ben?”

“Mr. Arnold?” Sammy gives a small nod, and Kingsley points across to Sammy’s left. “Right over there.”

Sammy follows Kingsley’s pointing finger to the bed next to his own. There’s no IV, no heart monitor, just a mint-green hospital blanket covering a sleeping person up to a shock of dark hair peeking out from under it. Lots of people probably have hair like that. There’s still no doubt in Sammy’s mind who it is he’s looking at.

His stomach drops, disturbs the drug-induced calm. He props himself up, prompts Kingsley to put a hand on his shoulder. “Was he hurt?”

Why else would he be in the recovery room? But Kingsley shakes his head, raises a placating hand until Sammy relents and lets himself sink back down. “He wasn’t hurt.” Kingsley throws a glance at the heart monitor, which has jumped up into the low nineties. “He did suffer a shoulder sprain, but it wasn’t bad enough to require surgery.”

“What’s he doing here, then?”

“He was pretty upset when he brought you in. I—you were in a car crash, correct?”

“Yeah. We went over the shoulder into—well, bit more than a ditch, bit less than a canyon.”

Kingsley nods. “And Mr. Arnold was driving?”

“Yes, he was, but it wasn’t his fault.” Sammy has half a mind to pull the cables from the heart monitor. Any time he has more than a neutral reaction to anything, the damn thing shows it plain as day. “We ended up losing traction on fresh snow. Could’ve happened to anyone.”

“You should tell him that when he wakes up. He wasn’t entirely coherent, but it was pretty clear that he feels responsible for what happened.”

Goddammit. Sammy sighs, runs a hand over his face. He’s already bone-tired again. “I have told him that. He just—he gets pretty wound up. Did you give him something to calm down?”

“He refused any treatment while you were in surgery. When you got out, he demanded to see you. We don’t normally allow visitors in the recovery room, but—well. We made an exception. Once he saw you and was satisfied that you were going to be okay, he—”

“Keeled over?” Sammy can just picture it, Ben spending hours working himself into a state and collapsing the moment he receives reassurance.

Kingsley gives him a smile and a shrug that’s as good as a confirmation. “It’s obvious that he cares about you.”

“Mhm.” Sammy glances back over, feels his heart go out when he thinks of what Kingsley’s describing. Poor Ben. Jesus Christ. “It’s mutual.”

He says it without considering the implications. Kingsley’s enough of a professional not to comment, but he doesn’t have to. Sammy knows a presumptive silence when he hears one. He throws the guy a glare. “We work together, Ben and I. We’re not—”

Kingsley holds up his hands. “None of my business at all, Mr. Stevens.” He fiddles some more with the IV regulator, gives Sammy a nod. “Get some more rest, all right?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Sammy settles down, turns a little so he can keep an eye on Ben. Waits until Kingsley’s moved out of earshot before he mutters, “Good night, Ben. And thank you.”

\------

_Gimme a sec, be right there._

Sammy types it out while his phone’s still buzzing from the texts he’s receiving. Ben’s a single sentence texter; anything that’s longer than a few words gets chopped up into separate messages. Sammy’s gotten used to it by now, though he worries at times if Ben’s contract really has unlimited texting. You’d expect so, but knowing Ben, it might not.

_Told you I’d be there at 1:00._

_Give us enough time to get up the mountain._

_Before the show._

_You could’ve gotten ready beforehand._

Sammy’s already put his phone down to tie his shoes, but the continued buzzing makes him grab it again. He reads Ben’s messages, rolls his eyes.

_You know, the more you berate me and force me to answer, the longer it’ll take. Just sit tight, I’ll be right out._

_Not forcing you._

That’s another thing; Ben’s probably the fastest texter west of the Mississippi. Sammy leaves the phone buzzing on the dresser as he digs through it for a hat and gloves.

_How am I forcing you._

_It’s 1:04, Sammy._

_How long does it take to put on shoes._

“Jesus Christ.” He grabs a pair of woolen gloves instead of the leather ones he’s been looking for. They’ll do the job, right? He’s just going to the car. Grabs his keys when he spots the leather gloves peeking out of the pocket of one of the jackets on the stand.

“Right.” He grabs them, feels better immediately. Takes a moment to make sure he has everything before he heads out.

Ben’s new car sits idling by the curb, headlights flooding the dark street with two bright light cones. Well, ‘new’ is a bit of a stretch. It’s blue, not gray like the Saturn was, and it’s a Ford. Beyond that, the old car and the new car are more or less interchangeable. When it comes to car purchases, Ben clearly has an eye for finding the saddest Craigslist sedan on sale.

The Ford’s not totaled and stuck in a snowed-over ditch until the weather clears up, though, so that counts in its favor.

Sammy opens the passenger door, knocks the snow off his boots before he gets in.

“You made it! I was about ready to call Search & Rescue.”

“Oh, relax. Five minutes is really not that long a wait.” He takes his gloves and hat off as Ben eases the car over a ridge of packed snow and pulls away from the curb.

It hasn’t really snowed again since the blizzard three weeks ago, but the snow that did fall has persistently stayed. The roads are cleared and salted by now, which means driving’s about as much as a hazard as it is any other day. That’s what the rational part of Sammy’s brain says, anyway. The other parts he tries to ignore, considering the fact that the only way to get to the station is by car.

He watches the familiar sight of nightly King Falls pass by as he consciously relaxes his shoulders and settles down in the passenger seat.

“God, I am so glad you’re back.” Ben throws him a side glance. “Still don’t think you should be, of course. Three weeks doesn’t seem long enough—”

“I’m cleared, Ben. It’s fine.” It took repeating several times that all his job requires him to do is sit in a chair for four hours, but eventually Sammy’s doctor signed off on him going back to work. Sammy can’t put into words the relief he feels at having some structure to his day again. Or, well. Night, as it is.

“If you say so.” Ben takes the turn off Main Street that’ll lead them past the CVS and out of town. “Anyway, I cannot tell you how over Chet I am. The man can’t hold a conversation to save his life, it’s just monologue upon monologue about his, well, exploits. And in the end, all those amount to is a story about him putting his you-know-what somewhere it doesn’t belong. It’s gross the first three nights, and then it’s just _boring_.”

Sammy laughs. He listened in on the show during the nights he spent in Big Pine hospital (he’s never been able to get any sleep in hospitals; they’re too loud and too bright and too unsettling). What he heard confirms Ben’s rant. “I’m sorry you had to endure that. Did he tell the story about Rufus Harley’s bagpipes?”

“There’s a story about—you know what, I don’t want to know. Please don’t tell me. I’ve heard enough about Chet’s dick to last me a lifetime.”

“Well, this particular story doesn’t involve his dick so much as it involves his—”

“ _Sammy_!”

Ben ducks his head, his hands on the wheel clenching as he grimaces in disgust. The car swerves the tiniest bit. Sammy’s shoulders tense. They might drift too close to the shoulder, get knocked off course by the pile of snow there—

They don’t. Ben’s holding the car steady.

_Get it together, Stevens._

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat, wraps a hand around the handle of the passenger door. “Just need to get used to this again.” The past three weeks, he can count on one hand the number of times he’s been in a car. The trip from Big Pine back home he made in the passenger seat of Troy’s SUV. Shopping and pharmacy runs happened without him even having to ask anyone—Ben, Betty, Troy all helped out. He hasn’t even picked up his own car yet; it’s still sitting in the station’s parking lot.

Maybe he shouldn’t have left it so long. Ben went back to work two days after the accident and seems perfectly comfortable behind the wheel.

Like he’s reading his thoughts, Ben glances over. “I shat my pants going back down the mountain the first night,” he says. “Would’ve probably been faster walking. Halfway, I was this close to pulling over and calling Betty to come pick me up.”

“Shit.” Sammy huffs a breath, somewhat put to shame by Ben’s candor. Chews on his lip as he thinks about the fact that his own honesty, despite good intentions formed under the duress of half a gallon of blood loss, still leaves much to be desired.

“You mind pulling over?”

“What? Sure.” Ben slows down immediately. “Something wrong?”

Sammy shakes his head, holds out a hand. “Not here. Up at the station road turn.”

“Right.” For the first time, Ben seems discomfited as well. “I guess we can do that.”

They remain quiet for the few more minutes it takes them to reach the intersection of the main and the station road. The bend’s just as hazardous going up; it’s a steep angle doubling back up the mountain while the main road continues on straight. Ben pulls the car over onto the gravel between the road and the mountainside, angles it so the headlights illuminate the opposite shoulder.

Sammy stalls for a few more moments by putting his hat and gloves back on. Gets out eventually, the nightly mountain air immediately creeping into his collar and sleeves. He’s got to say, he’s grown a lot less fond of cold weather.

“Careful, there’s a patch of ice here.”

Ben’s ahead of him, already halfway across the road. Points to a spot of shiny black asphalt that Sammy studiously avoids as he follows.

The Saturn’s tire tracks are still visible on the shoulder, two jagged grooves in the pile of cleared snow that’s by now frozen solid. They’re not actually that deep. There are traces of some mechanical liquid—gas, maybe, or engine oil—packed into the snow between them. The edge of the shoulder must’ve torn a line on the bottom of the car.

Ben stops near the road, a good few feet away from the edge. He’s got his hands in his pockets, shoulders pulled up. Sammy throws him a glance, considers stopping in solidarity, but then moves past him after all.

“Careful, Sammy.” There’s no denying the tension in Ben’s voice. “Don’t know how safe that overhang is.”

“If it was going to collapse, I think it would’ve under the weight of the car.”

Ben mutters a curse. There’s the crunching of frozen snow as he comes up next to Sammy after all.

“What are we looking for?”

Sammy shrugs as he squints into the dark between the trees. “Life-changing revelations brought on by an unexpected near-death experience?”

It takes Ben a moment to reply. “Not funny, dude,” he says eventually, a brittleness to his voice that makes Sammy regret his words.

“I’m sorry. I just—” _I have a shit ton of things I need to tell you_. Stop lying, Stevens, and tell Ben the truth.

He doesn’t even know where to start, though. Or, if he managed to start, he wouldn’t know where to draw the line. If his sexual preferences are relevant, does that make his past relevant? If so, which parts of it? Just Shotgun Sammy? The reason he came to King Falls? There’s nothing in the world he wants to talk less about. Maybe he needs to go even further back, though—Florida, college. That shitty house on the outskirts of Orlando. All the things he’s never told anyone, no matter close they were.

Goddammit. He’s a private person for a reason. None of this should matter. “Ben, I—”

“I’m so sorry, Sammy.” Ben blurts it out like it’s been building in him all night. Sammy looks over to finds Ben staring at him with wide, bright eyes. “I’m sorry I made you leave with me, I’m sorry I told you you’d be safe when you—when you _really_ weren’t. I am so fucking sorry about all of this.”

“Ben—”

“I didn’t wanna sit in the studio and wait for the roads to be cleared. They always do the one up to the station last, but we could’ve just called Troy. We wouldn’t even have needed to!” Ben spreads his hands. “Troy was on his way up to check on us, he told me. When he found us, he was driving up because he figured we’d need a ride in a car that’s not gonna—that’s not—”

“ _Ben_.”

Ben sucks in a gulp of air that sounds suspiciously like a sob. Sammy takes his shoulders, leads him away from the edge. “Ben, it’s okay.” He turns to face Ben. “You have to stop. It’s fine, I’m not mad at you.”

“Well, you should be.” Ben’s voice wavers. He puts his palms against Sammy’s chest like he wants to give him a shove for emphasis. The shove doesn’t happen; instead, Ben’s fingers curl into the jacket fabric as Ben’s eyes fill up. “You almost died, Sammy. You almost _died_ , and it’s my fau—”

“It’s not your fault.” Sammy’s insides still occasionally ache from the accident and subsequent surgery, but what he’s feeling right now has nothing to do with having had his guts rearranged. It’s a dull pain just below his ribcage, something that’s spreading up his throat and into his nose and eyes as he watches Ben’s tears begin to fall. He wraps his arms around Ben, dark hair tickling his nose as he pulls him in close. “It was an accident, Ben. Maybe we shouldn’t have been driving, but I knew that as well as you did. Honestly, the way I see it, I’m the one who got lucky.”

“What?” Ben sniffs against Sammy’s chest, sneaks his arms around his waist. “How does that make sense?”

“You didn’t get hurt.” The idea alone makes something in Sammy’s chest twist. “You fell twelve feet in a car, and you didn’t do more than bruise up your shoulder a little. That’s—” Sammy smiles, ignores how shaky it feels. “That’s impressive, dude. Kinda makes me feel like nothing could kill you.”

Ben pulls back just far enough to meet Sammy’s eyes. He’s got tears stuck to his lashes, but they’re not running down his cheeks anymore. “You worry about me getting killed a lot?”

Sammy shrugs. Ignores the memory of an empty, idling car that’s trying to surface. “Maybe. I don’t like the idea, that’s for sure.”

“Fair enough.” Ben clears his throat, steps back and wipes his eyes as he collects himself. “Okay, let’s make a deal. Next time we fall off a mountain, neither of us gets hurt, all right?”

Sammy snorts. “I’d rather avoid falling off a mountain, but sure. Deal.”

“Good. Okay.” Ben points a finger at him. “I’m holding you to that.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” He tilts his head at Ben’s car across the road. “Should we head out, then? Don’t wanna be late for my first show back.”

“Yeah. All right. Come on.”

Ben leads the way back, swerves the icy patch, and glances across the car roof as they’re about to get in.

“You kinda sounded like you were about to say something earlier. Was it—”

Sammy squints at Ben’s questioning face half-hidden in shadows. Thinks of that empty car from earlier, of an empty house in a big city. An empty promise he made that he won’t be able to keep.

He shakes his head, smiles. “Nothing important.”

Ben accepts it with a nod, gets in. Sammy follows. Barely feels terrified at all when Ben pulls away from the shoulder and takes the sharp turn up to the station.

Things will be back to normal soon enough. For now, they’ve got a show to do.


End file.
